Absolutely incredible that someone with a PhD has the time or inclination to write something so daft. Despite all the mathematical niceties, the enitre thing boils down to assumptions about probabiliites and cause and effect. For example, he includes in his equation the idea that 'good' exists and the probability that it is created by god. Pick whatever number suits your ingoing hypothesis, and there you go - theory proven.

The mind boggles. And the book got good reviews, for being written in a jaunty style!

[quote author=“Rasmussen”]Thanks for the tip ! I’ve been wondering how that was done.

Not to hijack this thread, but you can click on the BBCode link under “Options” (bottom left) as you write a post, or you can see a given post’s BBCoding by clicking on “quote” as if you were responding to it (or of course when you are responding to a post with BBCoding)—all that stuff shows up when you quote.

Byron

“We say, ‘Love your brother…’ We don’t say it really, but… Well we don’t literally say it. We don’t really, literally mean it. No, we don’t believe it either, but… But that message should be clear.”—David St. Hubbins

Interesting, but by following the same approach (and correcting a few of the assumptions) I am pretty sure that it turns out that dogs are God (I knew there something to that anagram business!)

Seriously, though, the misuse of statistics and probability is one of the great underappreciated criminal acts of our modern era. I suspect that this kind of thing will ultimately be as villified as big tobacco, but in the meantime, I guess it is just up to people to think critically.